Abstract

Similar to the concept of ‘smart city’, the phrase ‘smart home’ is being adopted by many businesses and stakeholders as a priority which recognizes the growing importance of digital technologies in the home context. However, few targeted methodologies exist that take into account the dynamic and interactive aspects of this environment when studying user experience. To date, the multi-disciplinary field of user experience studies, which investigates individuals perception about using a particular product, system or service, lacks a methodological and conceptual framework to study these smart homes that are connected to the internet and to a rapidly increasing amount of both sensors and actuators.

The goal of this paper is to create a framework to explore how technology enables and constrains agency and engagement in smart homes or spaces. Our methodological framework is grounded in the concepts of interactivity and affordances. We will propose a framework that takes the operational, structural features of a smart home (expressed in structural affordances) into account as well as the functional, subjective perception and usage of these features by people (expressed in functional affordances).